"Beautiful!" she said—"beautiful! Heaven is one great beauty."
Early in January, in the midst of the other discouragements, the Baptist mission had suffered a great calamity. A fire in the night, doubtless of incendiary origin, had destroyed their dwelling-houses, chapel, printing-press—including a large edition just completed of the New Testament in Siamese—and nearly all their personal effects. Their loss amounted to ten or twelve thousand dollars. A temporary house of bamboo and thatch was hastily thrown up, but new dwellings must be erected, and from exposure to the sun and fatigue in procuring timber for the rebuilding Dr. Jones was taken ill, and, his constitution being impaired by a score of years spent in the tropics, he succumbed to disease on the 13th of September, and passed peacefully away—an irreparable loss to his mission and to Siam. He was a man of excellent judgment, piety and culture, and had a rare mastery of the Siamese language with its curious idioms that made him most acceptable to the natives as a preacher and writer. His translation of the New Testament and several tracts that he prepared attest his scholarship in Siamese and his ability.
Just before this sad event the Rev. William Ashmore and wife, who had been sent out by the Baptist Board to take charge of the Chinese department, arrived in Bangkok.
